


Another Form of Literacy

by captainnperfecthair



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Blow Jobs, Books are like characters in this show honestly, Bottom John, Canon Gay Character, Captain Flint Has a Thing for Silver's Hair, Don Quixote leads to sex, Dorks in Love, First Time, Flint is a cocky bastard in bed, I declare it canon law, James Flint's number one kink: boys who read, James wishes he did, John Silver has a personal attachment to Don Quixote, John Silver knows Spanish, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Silver propositions Flint, Thanks Cervantes, mentions of little John Silver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 01:56:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10233092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainnperfecthair/pseuds/captainnperfecthair
Summary: Silver checks out the library of books in the Captain's quarters of the recently obtained Spanish Man-o-War. One book in particular catches his eye, one he has a certain connection with. When Flint arrives later to see Silver reading it, a conversation ensues that leads to some reflections on past lives and some interesting revelations. Perhaps better summarized as: the one where John Silver accidentally lets his feelings slip because he's pining hard for Flint and it leads to sex.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Mkay so this is not only my first Black Sails fic, but also the first time I've written something smutty so let's hope it's not a total stinking pile of garbage. 
> 
> Anyways, this started off as just a little drabble about John and how he learned Spanish and imaging that he knows Cervantes' work and winds up bonding a bit with Flint over it. Then it became THIS. I dunno what happened, man, honestly.
> 
> WARNING: There's lots of swearing. And then at the end there's some sexy times.

John Silver runs his fingers along the spines of the books shelved in the bookcase located in the captain’s cabin of the crew’s recently obtained Spanish warship. He glances over the titles, recognizing none of them until the second shelf down. Most are accounts by Spanish travelers, conquistadors, navigators, and explorers. Marco Polo’s journeys, de Las Casas’s account of Columbus’s first journey to the Indies, Magellan’s charts, an account from Coréz, and at least a dozen different collections of maps and navigational charts are amongst the collection of titles Silver’s fingers ghost over. There are also a collection of personal and shipboard accounts - recordkeeping documents.

 

But alas Silver does find a few titles he does know. _La Celestina, Guzmán de Alfarache, La Galatea,_ and, naturally, _Don Quixote_ are a couple of the ones that stand out to him. He notices other authors that are quite famous, but with whom he himself is not familiar such as Ovid, Caesar, and Petrarch.

 

The captain of this ship, whoever the sorry bastard was, shared a love of book similar to his own captain, it would seem.

 

Of the titles he recognizes, John’s fingers linger over _Don_ _Quixote_. He had come across an English version when he was just a boy during one of the rare periods of his time in the orphanage when they bothered to educate him. He had, of course, been forced to read it at first. He opened the weather worn, cracked, leather-bound book to page one begrudgingly, the only good thing about it being that it was a famous Spanish book. His mother had spoken nothing but Spanish with him whilst she was alive. He was probably fluent in it back then, but after her death due to illness when he was seven it had all but slipped away due to lack of practice. When he opened that book, John had at least looked forward to connecting in some distant, culturally significant way with his long gone mother.

 

John remembers Cervantes’ masterpiece quickly wound up catching his younger self’s interest, leading him to read in corners of the dim and mangy orphanage where he could see the pages well and there was minimal chance of being bothered by the others boys. He’d sometimes even leave his bed and read during the night when he found sleep an impossibility to continue chasing after.

 

Years later, as a young man of 16, he’d found himself aboard a merchant ship in Spain leaving Barcelona and heading for Palermo with an array of trade items and silver. Spain was practically overflowing with silver, and not in a good way. Silver was worth little in Spain in those days. Along the trip to Palermo and back, John hoped to once again obtain complete fluency in Spanish (a goal that came second to obtaining wages so he no longer had to live in poverty).

 

One more similar journey, these one being with a friend named Santiago that he had made upon the first journey, and John was dubbed as fluent. His mother, God rest her soul, would be proud.

 

He’s put his Spanish to little use since then, aside from assisting Flint in fooling a Spanish merchant ship into thinking the _Walrus_ was but a fellow Spanish merchant ship under attack by the _Ranger._ And now, seeing _Don Quixote_ among the titles on the shelf in golden lettering, John plucks it from the case without further consideration and makes his way over to the window seat in the captain’s cabin that he has, since the loss of his leg, wound up sleeping in on most nights. Honestly, he doesn’t quite understand why Flint hasn’t kicked him out yet. Or why he hasn’t left yet. It’s been over a month since he woke up to find himself a one-legged man and a newly christened quartermaster. He’s pretty sure he’s as healed as he’ll ever get, aside from growing back his leg.

 

Shaking the stray thought from his head, John settles into the window seat, setting his crutch aside.

 

“ _Don Quixote._ Good choice, _”_ a gruff voice comments from somewhere above him. John startles so hard he almost falls off his perch at the window. He presses his palms into the seat, shifting himself into a more upright position than where he was after having, apparently, fallen asleep with Cervantes’ novel resting open on his chest and face down.

 

Flint stands above him, an amused grin that he is barely trying to suppress cutting across his face, his eyes crinkling at the corner and green eyes glinting with mirth.

 

Silver narrows his eyes and glares up at the man with all the heat he can muster in his half-dazed state. But perhaps it’s not his weariness that leaves his gaze lacking its usual ire. He sees the way that delight plays across the lines on Flint’s face; the way it erases the facade of the Captain and leaves just James Flint in its place; the way the pain and loneliness erode like footprints in the sand on Nassau’s beaches from those green eyes-- _dammit_! He really needed to stop lingering on Flint’s features like this. On whenever their eyes meet from across the deck or when their hands graze one another’s. For fuck’s sake, even if Flint does feel the way Silver does about him, the captain is still mourning the loss of Miranda.

 

“Didn’t know you liked to read,” Flint says with a huff of amusement.

 

“I don’t particularly, but...well, you know I’m a curious, invasive little shit and that shelf of books caught my eye.”

 

Flint barks out a laugh, a true smile gracing his lips. “Yes, that I am _well_ aware of.” He carefully seats himself at the other end of the window seat, by John’s foot. “So, why Cervantes? Have you read it before?”

 

“Believe it or not, I have, actually. When I was a boy.” At the raise of Flint’s eyebrow, Silver adds, “It was in English. This would be the first time I read it in its original Spanish.”

 

“That’s right, you’re fluent in it,” Flint quietly notes.

 

“My mother was Spanish,” Silver says in way of explanation.

 

Flint smiles softly. “You must miss her.”

 

“To be honest, I hardly knew her before she was gone.”

 

Flint closes his eyes and nods. “I see.”

 

A silent moment passes between them, John glancing down at the book’s worn cover, at his hands, and then up at Flint.

 

The captain chooses that moment to look back up at him, as well, and John’s breath catches at the sudden eye contact.

 

The silence presses on for a moment longer and unlike most instances of silence where he is present, John does not breach this one, as he senses that the captain has something to say here. He has that I’m In A Sharing Mood look on his face, the one where his features are softer and his eyes have this pensive, far away glint in them like he’s lost in another time. That time where he was another man, not James Flint the Pirate Captain but James McGraw the Man. The lifetime where he had known Ms. Barlow as Miranda Hamilton and in which the author of the inscription within Flint’s copy of _Meditations_ \--or the one John suspected of being the author, anyway--was still alive and well and free to scribble love notes in classical texts. “I was once given a copy much like the one you’re holding. Leatherbound, in Spanish.”

 

It appears he was right. The captain does seem to be in an odd sort of sharing mood. John’s brows furrow in confusion, not only as he silently wonders what brought this on--as these Moods always seem to be precipitated by the strangest of events that John has yet to string together into a coherent explanation--but as he picks up on the language the text was in. “You don’t speak Spanish.”

 

“No,” Flint laughs, shaking his head. “No, but the hope was that I would learn so I might be able to better understand someone.”

 

John begins to laugh, too. “No such luck, I figure.” He decides not to let Flint in on the fact that he has pretty much already worked out who that Someone is. Flint likes his secrets, but John’s learned that when the captain’s ready, he will share them like he does now.

 

“Sadly, no.” John tactfully ignores the hint of sadness and disappointment that lingers just beneath the amusement in his captain’s reply. A story for another time, if such a time ever approaches.

 

“Shame. It’s a beautiful language. And quite handy when trying to fool a ship of Spanish merchants.” That earns him another round of laughter, and somewhere within him grows a desire to learn how to draw such mirth out of Flint for as long and as often as possible.

 

“I may yet learn. One day. If I were to find a teacher.” _Very subtle, Captain._

 

“Is that your way of asking for me to teach you?” John asks with a laugh, raising a thick, dark brow.

 

Flint stares at him for a moment, eyes wide and unreadable, and then he snorts with laughter. “You? Teach me? God, no. I can’t imagine you have any kind of predilection for teaching.”

 

Silver gives him his most offended look. “You don’t know that! I’m full of surprises!”

 

Flint rolls his eyes, making some disgusted, derisive noise. John knows there’s no real heat behind it.

 

“Not that I’d agree, anyway. I quite like having the leverage of knowing a language you don’t.”

 

“You gossiping little shit,” Flint sneers, but again, he knows there’s no real meaning behind it. Not anymore.

 

“Best resign yourself to it, captain. You’re stuck with me,” he says, enjoying the moment perhaps a little too much. Flint rolls his eyes again, his expression reminding John of the one he’d had when he tasted the pig John had attempted to roast while they were careening the _Walrus._ That seems like a lifetime ago now. “C’mon, you know you love me,” he adds without thinking, and once it’s out he freezes, the blood pumping through his veins seeming to still.

 

Flint stares at him, expression once again unreadable, but Silver doesn’t see the same kind of panic that he’s sure is reflected in his own eyes. _Fuck._

 

“Not--not _that_ way, of course. I wasn’t implying--” He stutters, raising his hands in defense because surely regardless of how close they are, Flint is ready to pull his knife out and flay him like a fish for such a breach in conduct.

 

But instead, Flint just smirks. Like there’s something funny and not-at-all insulting about Silver’s words. Like, instead, they’ve revealed a great and wondrous truth to him. “Why _not_ imply it?”

 

John tells his jaw to stay where it is instead of dropping to the floor. “What?”

 

“I know the signs, John,” Flint says, tone low and soft as he leans in towards him. John tells his heart, beating loudly between his ribs at a volume that is frankly quite distracting, to quiet the _fuck_ down.

 

“The _signs,_ captain?” He asks, brow arching toward his hairline.

 

“James. None of this captain shit anymore. I think we’ve moved past that, at least when it’s just the two of us alone together.” And then he reaches over and grabs the book out of John’s lap, setting it aside and then taking one of his hands into his own. “I don’t think I’m reading those signs wrong.”

 

John swallows, his throat feeling suddenly dry. “No,” he rasps. “No, you’re not.” Because fuck it, Flint--no, _James_ \--knows. He fucking _knows._ And if the not-at-all-subtle way in which he is leaning into John’s space, gently stroking small circles into the back of John’s hand with his thumb, and staring at him with those sharp green eyes is any kind of indication at all, he feels the same way John does.

 

So why fucking deny it? Why delay it?

 

Perhaps, this time, John will quit thinking and just _act._

 

And the next thing he knows, James’ lips are on his and James’ hand is cradling the nape of his neck. Meanwhile, distantly, John can still feel the warmth of James’ palm underneath his and the little circles James’ thumb is making over the back of his hand. Frankly, he’s not even quite sure how they got from staring at each other to practically being in each other’s arms, _kissing_ , but now that he’s in the moment he realizes he doesn’t want it to reach an end. He could kiss James into the next goddamn century.

 

The kiss is softer than he thought it would be. James Flint is such a force of nature, unbridled in his rage and his passion and determination. John always thought the the man would kiss with a similar fervor, one that was passionate but heavy and forceful. Even when the shock wears off and John begins to reciprocate, James’ touch is gentle and he lets John begin to dictate how the kiss proceeds and how long it lasts.

 

Had he his way, John would never let it end but, frustratingly enough, he finds himself growing breathless and so he breaks away. He leans away only far enough to breathe some air back into his lungs so he can plunge right back into that moment once more, but as he does he can’t help but let out a breathless, “Fuck,” as he opens his eyes and finds those sharp green ones staring back at him, pupils wide and face flushed. It’s a gorgeous sight to behold, and John finds his hand reaching up to cup James’ cheek, fingers brushing across the ginger hairs of his beard as he does.

 

James lets out a breathy laugh, eyes darting between John’s eyes and his lips and _God_ . He looks so happy. So _relieved._ God, how long had he kept these feelings bottled away for? When he could’ve just told James?

 

“I don’t think...I don’t think I ever really _knew_ until now,” John murmurs quietly between the scant space between them. James watches him carefully. “I mean I knew I felt something, but all those times I couldn’t look away; that I wanted to take your hand--I kept telling myself there must be something else to those feelings. That it couldn’t be _desire._ That I couldn’t let you know. I never…”

 

James hushes him, grabs his face with both hands and gently pulls him in for another kiss. “I understand. I know. It’s alright,” he whispers in between several more brief kisses.

 

“How long have you known? About your...inclinations?” John asks, pulling away to meet James’ eyes.

 

“Years. But if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t been with another man in a very long time.”

 

“So tonight would be the first time in a while for you, then?” John asks, trying to sound more sly and confident than he feels.

 

“Tonight?” James echoes, a questioning look on his face that roughly translates to, _‘Are you sure?’_ And John nods.

 

“I want this. I’m certain of it,” John says, and to prove his point he pulls James into another kiss that is more heated and urgent than the ones that came before. One hand is cupping James’ face as the other lands on his shoulder before moving downward, roaming across his chest. He can feel James’ lips, even as he meets John’s with equal fervor, curl into a smile. It makes his heart swell and the hand trailing across James’ chest travels back upward so he can wrap his fingers around James’ collar and pull him closer.

 

James follows after him, but stops him before he even makes contact with it and breaking the kiss off long enough to pull both of their shirts up over their heads, John’s first and then his own. Then he allows John to pull him down whilst repositioning the both of them so that John is lying flat upon the makeshift bed and James is hovering over him, elbows on either side of John’s shoulders.

 

Wrapping his arms around the broad frame leaning over him, John tugs him closer. James isn’t close enough, he needs him closer. He wants their bodies to connect at every point they can. Wants to feel the heat of his body, his breath on his face, his heart beating right up against his own. James shifts closer, lifts a hand and reaches up to stroke John’s hair, and then--

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” John hisses, as James’s thigh presses up against the growing bulge in his pants. James lets loose a low and wicked laugh that only makes his stomach coil in a familiar way. His member twitches beneath the constraints of his trousers.

 

“Getting hard already, I see,” James teases. “You certainly are desperate for it, aren’t you?”

 

“Yes, I am,” John confesses breathily, hands absently roaming across the older man’s back. He finds a peculiar delight in seeing the assemblage of freckles across his shoulders and down his back. He grins a little, wanting to comment on them but James speaks first and derails his musings in the process.

 

“Tell me, Mr. Silver,” he begins, the husk of his voice and the way he uses John’s surname like he’s giving a command makes him shiver involuntarily. The warm, heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach swells. James chuckles when he notices it. “Just how long have you been lusting after me?” He punctuates the question with a kiss along his jaw, and then just below his ear. He continues down to the nape of his neck where it joins his shoulder, placing an open-mouthed kiss when he gets there. Another shudder runs through him.

 

“Long enough,” John says, trying to keep the quiver out of his voice. He fails.

 

“Not so smart-mouthed now, are we?” James shoots back, lifting his head to shoot John an amused look. John does his best to look affronted but he’s pretty sure he just looks blissed and distracted. Dammit. “Perhaps I’ve finally found a way to shut you up,” he adds with a laugh just before he nips at John’s shoulder and the younger man literally jolts, giving a shout. James shakes with laughter. “Yes, I think you’ll be a blithering, incoherent mess when I’m through with you. This is going to be fun.”

 

John lifts his head to stare down at James, knowing that the look on his face can only be interpreted to mean, _‘Oh, shit, what am I in for?’_ James looks up to meet his eyes and just stares for a long moment, lips hovering right over the center of his chest, and then he winks. He fucking _winks_! And then, without warning, his hand is slipping under John’s trousers and cupping him while his mouth closes around one of his nipples.

 

John moans, head falling back as James’ hand gives a few half-hearted tugs at his cock, and _God damn!_ They haven’t actually started fucking yet and already this is the greatest John has ever felt with anyone before.

 

As James’ lips and sucks at his nipple, John reaches a hand up and runs it over the short, prickly hair that is slowly--far too slowly for John’s liking--making its return. “You know, I really wish you still had your hair so I had something to run my hands through. You really had such beautiful hair.”

 

James’ only retort is to rake his teeth over John’s nipple, earning a hiss from him, before coming back up to kiss him on the lips as his free hand begins to play at his other nipple. John groans into it, providing James the perfect opportunity to slip his tongue in and deepen the kiss. John enthusiastically responds.

 

“I think I’ll let that be the last coherent thing you say tonight,” James says devilishly as he pulls away and gets to his feet.

 

“What are you doing?” John asks, pointedly ignoring the panicked tone of voice that his words come out.

 

“Taking you to my bed, you idiot,” James says before he puts his arms underneath his leg and around his shoulders and lifts him up in one simple movement, carrying him effortlessly and quickly over across the cabin and depositing him on the bed. “It’s much easier for me to do _this_ over here,” he further explains, and before John can ask exactly what ‘this’ is, James is pulling at his pants, tugging them off hastily and discarding them on the floor somewhere. John doesn’t see where they land. Doesn’t care, either.

 

Especially not once James’ hand once again finds his cock, fingers wrapping around it as he gives it a few hard strokes. John’s breath hitches, but it’s when James suddenly lowers his head, opens his mouth, and closes his lips around the head of John’s cock that his breath completely _stops_.

 

“Oh, _Je_ sus,” John moans, hands grasping for the sheets.

 

James hums amusedly from where he has his mouth stretched over his cock. John feels the reverberation throughout his entire goddamn body, toes curling. And then James is lifting his lips off of his cock. “Not quite,” he says with a laugh, “But probably the closest you’ll ever get to him.”

 

“You’re a cocky bastard in bed, aren’t you?” John shoots back, lifting his head once more to look at him.

 

James grins back at him. “Perhaps. Now how about you tell me in another hour or so whether I have a right to be. I think the answer will be ‘yes.’” Without further delay, and without ever taking his eyes off of his, James then brings John’s cock up to his lips once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Yo okay so it took some guts to write this let alone POST it, soooooo...if you liked it even a little bit, please don't forget to leave Kudos and, if so inspired, a comment! One or both would really make my day.
> 
> Also, if you've got as many feelings about these assholes as I do and about season 4, come talk to me on tumblr @xavviers!


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